Good Morning. Ford Motor Co. CEO Mark Fields said Monday that the automaker had created a new role of chief data and analytics officer, a sign that big companies are starting to take analytics much more seriously. “There will be a large wave of even more data coming into the company,” Mr. Fields said in an interview with the Journal's Mike Ramsey and CIO Journal on Monday. “It’s really important to have a centralized person bringing that together.”

Paul Ballew, who ran consulting firm Dun and Bradstreet ’s global data and analytics and previously held the same position at Nationwide Insurance Co., returns to Detroit for the position. He left General Motors Co., where he was the chief sales analyst, for Nationwide in October 2007.

Already, Ford has created an automated system that analyzes sales and inventory in a given region and tells a dealer what kinds of cars, and even what options on those cars, the dealer should order. It replaced informed guesses by managers. The result has been faster sales, according to Mr. Fields. The cars most likely to be in demand are on the lot sooner, and consumers don’t have to wait for an order to be filled, or shop elsewhere. As Ford collects more data from connected vehicles and sensor-embedded manufacturing plants, analytics will become more important as a forecasting tool, according to Mr. Fields. “We will have a greater ability to predict … the customer’s unmet needs,” he said.

Dow Chemical CIO looks for productivity from $1 Billion IT overhaul.Dow Chemical Co. CIO Paula Tolliver says the company’s eight-year, $1 billion IT architecture overhaul is providing the company with visibility it needs as the industrial giant seeks to diversify its offerings across a number of new businesses and sectors. Ms. Tolliver tells CIO Journal that she seeks to get value from the tech upgrade, while investing strategically in Big Data, cloud and mobile technologies. “It means extracting value out of the investments that we’re making, and at the same time making bets in the changes that are coming at us with new technology,” Ms. Tolliver said in an interview.

CIOs will play a larger role in 2015 guiding their company’s relationship with customers, Forrester Research predicts. They will do this both by forming closer relationships with chief marketing officers, and by adopting technology processes, including faster software development, that help make the company more responsive to customer needs. “The only way for CIOs to stay relevant is to cut over to this customer focus,” Cliff Condon, chief research officer of Forrester tells CIO Journal. Where CIOs were once limited to managing back-office technologies, they now have a much broader strategic remit from CEOs who expect them to build technologies that “empower all customer relationships,” he said. Agree? Will 2015 be the year of the customer-focused CIO?

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Big Data companies like Hortonworks face business model challenge. As we take stock of Hortonwork's Friday Wall Street debut, the New York Times reminds us that "building big data businesses is proving to be anything but a get-rich-quick game." One of the challenges concerns scaling up, or the difficulties surrounding it. "Data science, as a business, is still young. As the technology moves beyond the Internet incubators like Google and Facebook, it has to be applied company by company, in one industry after another. At this stage, there is a lot of hand craftsmanship rather than software automation. So the aspiring software companies find themselves training, advising and building pilot projects for their commercial customers. They are acting far more as services companies than they hope to be eventually."

Tech and media companies back Microsoft in privacy case. Almost two dozen technology and media companies, including Apple Inc., National Public Radio, Salesforce.com Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. filed briefs Monday supporting Microsoft Corp.'s effort to block the U.S. government from seizing a customer's emails stored in Ireland. Microsoft is arguing that a ruling in favor of a search warrant would set a precedent where foreign governments would feel free to tap data centers outside their borders. The New York Times reports that some cloud companies said a ruling would hurt their cloud business outside the U.S. “It will expose American businesses to legal jeopardy in other countries and damage American businesses economically,” their brief said. The case is being considered in New York by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Uber blames algorithm for surge pricing in Sydney. Uber Inc. rolled out surge-pricing in downtown Sydney during Monday's armed hostage crisis, charging customers four-times the normal rate, the New York Times reports. The car service app maker quickly rescinded the pricing change, blaming an automatic function that clicked on to get more drivers online. “Surge pricing is algorithmic and responded automatically to the large increase in demand for Uber rides out of the C.B.D.,” it said, referring to the central business district. Uber announced free rides in the area and said it would refund riders charged with the higher amount.

France plans crackdown on Uber. France moved to ban Uber Technologies Inc. from operating its service that uses drivers without professional licenses, the WSJ reports. The French government said the company’s Uberpop service that uses drivers without professional licenses is “illegal.” Organizing a system that puts paying clients in touch with drivers without professional licenses will be punishable by two years in prison and a €300,000 fine.

Google shopping to counter Amazon. Google Inc. has approached retailers about creating a “buy” button for its online shopping site that would be similar to Amazon.com Inc.’s popular “one-click ordering” feature, the WSJ's Rolfe Winkler and Alistair Barr report. Until now, Google Shopping has referred shoppers to merchants’ websites via links in search results. But Google wants to keep users on its own pages longer, rather than send them elsewhere.

Google Ventures shifts focus to healthcare. In 2014 more than a third of investments from Google Ventures, the search giant's investment arm, when to health care and life sciences. That's up from 9% in 2013, reports the Journal's Alistair Barr. Investments in consumer Internet technology have declined. They received 8% of Google’s venture investments in 2014, down from 66% in 2013, when Google placed a $258 million bet on taxi-hailing app Uber. Bill Maris, head of Google Ventures said part of the motivation is to go against the grain, as valuations of some consumer-Internet companies soar. “If you are at the buffet and everyone is picking the entrée, try the dessert,” he said.

WeWork: Now a $5 billion co-working startup.WeWork Companies Inc., a provider of shared office space, said on Monday it closed a $355 million funding round. The deal values the company at about $5 billion, said people close to the matter. Unlike its closest competitors, WeWork has its own mobile app and a cash-flow statement closer in line with a tech company, than a real-estate company, Henry Ellenbogen, a portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, tells the WSJ's Lindsay Gellman and Eliot Brown.

NBC to live stream its network. The streaming is part of a broader effort at parent NBCUniversal to make more network content available online via computers and mobile devices, the WSJ’s Joe Flint reports. Unlike CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s HBO, NBC isn’t planning to sell a separate online version of its network to consumers without requiring that they be pay-TV subscribers. Instead, NBC’s live stream as well as additional content the company plans to offer via an on-demand platform, consumers will have to provide proof that they already have a pay-TV subscription.

Justice department faces tough questioning in e-books case. Justice Department lawyers faced aggressive questioning from judges reviewing a finding that Apple Inc. conspired with book publishers to raise the price of electronic books in 2010, the WSJ’s Joe Palazzolo reports. At least one of the three judges on the appellate panel suggested Apple’s negotiations with publishers spurred competition with Amazon.com Inc. by “breaking the hold of a monopolist.”

Riverbed to be acquired by Thoma Bravo.Riverbed Technology Inc. agreed to be acquired by private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC for about $3.6 billion, following more than a year of pressure from activist investor Elliott Management Corp., the WSJ reports. Riverbed pioneered a niche in networking hardware and completed one of the hottest stock offerings of 2006, but later ran into problems sustaining its growth and maintaining its share price, creating an opportunity for Elliott to press for changes.

Court approves GT Advanced settlement with Apple.GT Advanced Technologies Inc. won bankruptcy court approval of a settlement with Applethat wards off the threat of litigation over a failed effort to produce smartphone screen materials, the WSJ’s Peg Brickley reports. The judge’s approval came after GT Advanced and Apple agreed to terms with leading creditors who had threatened to derail the pact and transform GT Advanced’s bid for an operational turnaround into a litigation-driven bankruptcy aimed at Apple. GT Advanced accused Apple of keeping it a “captive” supplier, subject to shifting specifications. It also said it was the victim of Apple’s interference in the manufacturing process and found itself in a one-sided deal with a customer that allegedly refused to buy or to bargain.

Xiaomi invests in appliance maker.Xiaomi Inc. of China has invested $203.7 million in local home-appliances maker Midea Group Co., in a deal aimed at boosting the smartphone maker’s presence in the market for Internet-connected home electronics, the WSJ’s Gillian Won reports. The investment gives Xiaomi a 1.29% stake in Midea, a maker of consumer appliances such as air conditioners, washing machines and rice cookers.

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

Foreign investors pile into bonds. Foreign investors are snapping up Treasury bonds at the fastest clip in two years, propelling yields to fresh lows even as the U.S. economy gains steam. Purchases by China, Japan, Switzerland and others underscore the broad demand for safe government debt amid global turmoil and uneven economic growth.

U.S. industrial production surpasses prerecession peak. U.S. manufacturing output climbed past its prerecession peak this fall, suggesting the American economy is on solid footing despite growing signs of weakness abroad. Factory output climbed 1.1% in November, while October’s figure was revised to a 0.4% gain from a previously reported 0.2% increase.